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Relationships among several Old World groups popularly called “shrikes” have always been problematic. Formerly, the bush-shrikes, African birds, were habitually classified within the family Laniidae, as supposedly fairly close relatives of the “true”...

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In the majority of structural respects, malaconotid shrikes are somewhat unexceptional passerines. They vary in size from Pringle’s Puffback and the Brubru, at only about 15 cm in length and 15–30 g in weight, up...

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In brief, bush-shrikes are birds of woody and leafy vegetation. Being a large family with a good number of moderately diversified genera almost entirely restricted to Africa, the Malaconotidae could be expected to occupy most of the many distinct woody habitats that the continent provides, and...

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Bush-shrikes are retiring birds that skulk in undergrowth, on shady ground beneath it and in canopy foliage, and they do not readily show their gorgeous colours, at least to human observers. Tchagras live more in the open and sometimes perch on bushtops or forage on bare soil, where they can...

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The various genera of Malaconotidae all have loud and distinctive songs and a varied vocabulary of calls. The same songs seem always to function both in courtship and in territorial proclamation and defence; countersinging across territory boundaries is common. In addition to producing...

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The secretive nature of bush-shrikes, skulking in thick cover often high up in trees, makes them difficult birds to study, and as a result there have been no systematic field investigations into their feeding behaviour. Indeed, there are only a few protracted series of observations at the nest...

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At least as secretive in nesting as in all other aspects of their lives, bush-shrikes are for the most part ill known in that regard. Basic information about the breeding biology of several species was obtained decades ago by a handful of dedicated amateurs such as W. Serle, in West Africa,...

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No species in this family is migratory in the conventional sense of the term. Most appear to be sedentary throughout their ranges, and paired individuals that occupy a territory throughout the year are strictly so, perhaps moving no more than a kilometre from the centre of the territory during...

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Members of the family Malaconotidae are of no commercial interest and of very little cultural interest to humanity. The great majority of bush-shrike species are unobtrusive, shy or even secretive birds of dense...

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To read the accounts of ornithologists in the early or middle twentieth century studying birds all over sub-Saharan Africa, one might suppose that a great many species, including the bush-shrikes, were a good deal commoner then than they seem to be in many countries now. In the absence of...

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Species list

List of species of the Bush-shrikes (Malaconotidae) family. Each species provides information on taxonomy, descriptive notes, voice, habitat, food and feeding, breeding, movements, status and conservation and bibliography.

A detailed list of the species of the family is displayed to our subscribers, showing the following columns: Genus, Species, Common name, Conservation Status, Figure, and the Check mark. Above the table, a tiny search engine is displayed to facilitate the filtering of the species.

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